Pacific Free Press was launched in March 2007 by Dutch-Canadian Richard
Kastelein of V.O.F. Expathos, in the Netherlands along with Chris Cook- CFUV radio journalist and Editor in Chief of Pacific Free Press. Cook is based in , Victoria, British Columbia.
The mission of Pacific Free Press is simple: to dig out nuggets of truth from
the slag-heap of lies, ignorance and witless diversion that has buried
public discourse today. Pacific Free Press provides a new venue for
disseminating hard news and insightful, fact-based analysis of the
harsh realities too often ignored or distorted by the mainstream press.
Landmark Settlement Announced in Federal Lawsuit Challenging
Conditions at Immigrant Detention Center in Texas
by ACLU The American Civil Liberties Union today announced a landmark settlement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that greatly improves conditions for immigrant children and their families inside the T. Don Hutto detention center in Taylor, Texas.
Dozens of children were released from the facility with their families as a result of the litigation. The settlement is expected to be approved shortly by Judge Sam Sparks of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas.
"This is a huge victory not only for the children and families that have been released from Hutto, but for every detainee held at the facility, now or in the future," said Vanita Gupta, a staff attorney with the ACLU's Racial Justice Program. "Though we continue to believe that Hutto is an inappropriate place to house children,conditions have drastically improved in areas like education, recreation, medical care, and privacy."
Meet Professor Nadia Abu El-Haj, a notorious Barnard College professor now up for tenure who:
§ claims the ancient Israelite kingdoms are a "pure political fabrication,"
§ denies the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 CE and instead blames its destruction on the Jews,
§ does not speak or read Hebrew yet had the temerity to publish a book on Israeli archaeology that demanded such expertise,
§ is so ignorant of her topic that she quotes one archaeologist on how a dig might have damaged the ancient palaces of Solomon--oblivious to the fact that those palaces, if they existed, were far from the site in question.
None of these charges are true. You could look it up. I did, in El-Haj's book Facts on the Ground, about which these charges are made. The statements for which a network of right-wing critics assail her book are not there.
Bush's Last Hurrah
by The Nation Editors Senator John McCain, busy pressing his campaign in Florida, didn't bother to show up. The Wall Street Journal reported the speech on page 3. The New York Times relegated the full text to its website. TV chatter focused more on Senator Edward Kennedy's stirring Camelot embrace of Barack Obama earlier that day than George W. Bush's proposals in what was, blessedly, his last State of the Union address.
What happens when a President gives a State of the Union speech and nobody listens?
Olympic Dreams and Nightmares
by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom
When people ask if the Olympics will change China, I say the
tense is misleading. The Games already have changed it.
To prepare for
2008, Beijing's urban landscape has been transformed, as old
neighborhoods have been destroyed, giant new sports arenas built and
big countdown clocks set up to tick off the moments until the opening
ceremonies start on August 8, 2008 -- at eight seconds after 8:08 pm,
no less.
Too Big To Fail?
by William Greider The fall of Citigroup is a resonant political event -- akin to the Republican Party's failure to win reform of Social Security -- only this time the bell tolls for the Democratic Party.
The creation of Citigroup as an all-purpose financial supermarket and too-big-to-fail banking marvel was very much the accomplishment of Clinton Democrats.
They enacted the law in the late 1990s that authorized this megabank monstrosity, with coaching from Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, and of course Sanford Weill, the creative genius who built Citi.
Nationalists Stirring in Iraq
by Robert Dreyfuss
On January 13, an emerging Sunni-Shiite nationalist bloc in Iraq signed a groundbreaking agreement aimed at ending Iraq's civil war, blocking the privatization of Iraq's oil industry and checkmating the breakaway Kurdish state. It's a big step forward, and it could change the face of Iraqi politics in 2008.
For the past two years, Iraqi nationalists -- opposed to the US occupation, opposed to Al Qaeda, and opposed to Iran's heavyhanded influence in Iraqi affairs -- have struggled to assert themselves. The nascent coalition contains the seeds of true national reconciliation in Iraq, but it has emerged independently of the United States. Unrelated to the constant American pressure on the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to meet various reconciliation "benchmarks," the new coalition is designed either to sweep Maliki out of office or force him to join it.
Republican Machine Continues Deceptions on Afghanistan
by John Nichols The Republican National Committee (RNC) has for some time now made itself the mouthpiece for extreme pro-war rhetoric, despite the fact that substantial numbers of Republicans -- some of whom sit in Congress -- oppose the Bush-Cheney administration's misguided approach to the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
In this context, the RNC spends most of its time attacking Democrats who express sentiments no more radical than those mentioned by mainstream Republicans. The current target of the RNC's comically over-the-top wrath is U.S. Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat who is a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Blackwater's Blues Brothers?
by Jeremy Scahill Every day, new revelations emerge in the mounting scandal rocking the Bush Administration and the mercenary company Blackwater Worldwide.
Much of the attention focuses on the now infamous shooting spree in Baghdad's Nisour Square on September 16, in which seventeen Iraqi civilians were killed and twenty-four wounded.
FBI investigators are now alleging that fourteen were victims of unjustified and unprovoked shooting -- some were shot while they were fleeing. Investigators also say they found nothing to substantiate Blackwater's claims of being fired on by Iraqis. This comes a month after a US Army investigation determined there was "no enemy activity involved" and labeled the shootings a "criminal event."
But while Blackwater gets hammered in the press, the behind-the-scenes actions of the company's paymaster, the State Department, grow more scandalous by the minute.
The Weepy Witch and the Secret Muslim
by Katha Pollitt The media are hopelessly sexist and relentlessly trivial. So much we've learned from the mass hysteria over Hillary Clinton's "emotional moment" in New Hampshire.
(Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Robert L. Jamieson: "She morphed into a 'compassion brand' -- like, irony of ironies, Kleenex"; New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd: "Can Hillary Cry Her Way Back to the White House?").
Even Southern charmer John Edwards couldn't resist observing that a commander in chief needed "strength and resolve" -- a view echoed by Fox commentator Dick Morris ("There could well come a time when there is such a serious threat to the United States that she breaks down") and given full misogynous display by nationally syndicated cartoonist Pat Oliphant's "Madam President Meets the Bad Guys," portraying a dumpy, tearful Hillary surrounded by Osama, Kim Jong Il and similar.
All this fuss over a welling of the eyes so brief that if you blinked your own you'd miss it. I have moments like that every day! This was the Dean Scream all over again: a nano-nothing whipped into a self-congratulatory media typhoon.
Canadian ISPs Plan Net Censorship
by Mike Finch A net-neutrality activist group has uncovered plans for the demise of the free Internet by 2010 in Canada. By 2012, the group says, the trend will be global.
Bell Canada and TELUS, Canada’s two largest Internet service providers (ISPs), will begin charging per-site fees on most Internet sites, report anonymous sources within TELUS.
“It's beyond censorship, it is killing the biggest ecosystem of free expression and freedom of speech that has ever existed,” I Power spokesperson Reese Leysen said. I Power was the first group to report on the possible changes.
It is often said, as a way of proving that the Democrats are no different from the Republicans: “The Democrats voted for war, they funded war, they voted for the Patriot Act… They are not different; they are the same. Hoping they will be different is unrealistic and foolish.” That’s a direct quote from a comment on one of my recent essays in which I argued that the Democrats’ newly one power in Congress is an absolutely essential weapon of ours in the battle against the Bushite evil. But one hears variations on that argument all the time.
And I just have to scratch my head and ask: When the Democrats do these things –and I acknowledge that they’ve done often done such things since 2002– can’t you see that they are not doing them for the same reasons as the Bushites?
Can’t you see that the field of forces in which these people are operating compels them to go directions that they’d prefer not to go? I mean it “compels” them, assuming we grant their priorities, which is to survive politically.
Please God Can My Son Survive Acute Myaloid Leukaemia?
by Andrew Kishner
Today, I learned that someone typed the phrase ‘please God can my son survive Acute Myaloid Leukaemia?’ to reach a webpage I set up that discusses the medical impacts of nuclear accidents and testing across the globe.
Little needs to be said about what this person is going through. It is immensely saddening to read this plea for help.
I am reminded about a story about a 16 year-old girl who died of acute myeloid leukaemia. Her name was Ann Capewell, and she lived just one mile from the former runway of Greenham Common, a former NATO and United States Air Force base located in the south of England near the town of Newbury. Greenham Common was the home to America’s nuclear B-47 bombers during the Cold War.
"We Want To Be Free"
via Brenda Norrell Wounded Knee, Lakota (formerly South Dakota) – Thirteen days and 287 miles ago, 44 people mounted horses and began the Memorial Chief Big Foot Ride in honor of Si Tanka (Chief Big Foot) and his unarmed band of Mniconjou and Hunkpapa refuges who were slaughtered by U.S. Calvary in 1890 at Wounded Knee.
But while these 44 riders began their journey under the shadow of U.S. Treaty, their numbers will swell to over 100 and end under the protection of a free and sovereign Lakota Nation.
New York Times reporter, Chris Hedges, has written an extraordinary book, American Fascism: The Christian Right And The War On America. Having survived a Christian fundamentalist background myself, I marvel at the timely urgency of Hedges’ book, but also, at the obtuse disconnect most Americans have with the pivotal thesis of his book: the power of the religious right in the United States to bring forth a nation whose totalitarian repression could dwarf that of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. As Hedges notes, we are well on the path toward such a reality, and the Domionist Christian right is a principal player in the process.
While the nucleus of that movement is small, measuring only about 1% of evangelicals and led by the likes of James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and John Hagee, those leaders are supported by throngs of evangelicals sympathetic to their theocratic views who dutifully preach the consummate tenet of the movement, submission.
Citizens must submit to their government officials, particularly the ones who claim to be born-again Christians and receiving their orders from God; wives must submit to husbands — children must submit to parents; and everyone must submit to the teachings of the bible as interpreted by evangelical Christianity or burn in hell. I will herein use the term “Christian fascism” or “Cristo-fascism” as synonymous with a worldview and political philosophy which are both fundamentalist Christian and fascist in nature.
War or Peace?
by Catherine Whelan Costen March 13, 2008 Canadian MP’s will vote on whether to extend Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan to 2011. Of course we know that our MP’s represent the people of the nation, so their vote is our vote. How can they know our desires when we are so uninformed regarding this issue?
Canadians would respond better to the situation if we knew more about what is really going on. Canadians and people all over the world are seeking peace. Historically speaking though, peace is ever as profitable as war. So, is peace really desirable? Are we on a peace mission? Are we aspiring to create peace?
It was refreshing to read an article referring to threat of the North American Union, as you say, many politicians dismiss the term as some sort of conspiracy theory, even while they move on with the plan. You raise some important points about Paul Martin’s role in this betrayal of Canadians, however you mislead the public when you suggest that Mr.Harper would or could save us from the threat.
Why would he stop the NAU? Is it your intention to form a
heroes image in the minds of Canadian voters just prior to the
election? Consider the flow of this takeover of three sovereign nations
if you will? Who has been behind the scheme?
A letter to Judi McLeod, Canada Free Press
Re: article “Prime Minister Steven Harper could stop the North American Union”
Lakes across Canada face being turned into mine dump sites
by Terry Milewski, CBC News
CBC News has learned that 16 Canadian lakes are slated to be officially but quietly "reclassified" as toxic dump sites for mines. The lakes include prime wilderness fishing lakes from B.C. to Newfoundland.
Bush pilot Doug Beaumont and
environmentalist Jim Bourquin fish on Kluela Lake, downstream from the
planned dump site for the Red Chris gold and copper mining project in
northwestern B.C. (Terry Milewski/CBC).Lakes are in B.C., Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, NWT and Nunavut
Environmentalists say the process amounts to a "hidden subsidy" to mining companies, allowing them to get around laws against the destruction of fish habitat.
Nuclear Safety Watchdog Head Fired for "lack of leadership": Minister
by CBC News
Federal Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn defended his decision to fire the head of Canada's nuclear safety watchdog Wednesday, arguing she lost the government's confidence over the way she handled the shutdown of a medical isotope-producing nuclear reactor late last year.
The former head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Linda Keen, will remain a member of the commission. (CBC)
Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission president Linda Keen was let go hours before she and Lunn were set to appear before a House committee in Ottawa on Wednesday. Keen subsequently backed out.
Charges Laid Against Sea Shepherd Vessel
by CBC News The captain and first officer of a ship being used to protest the annual seal hunt off Canada's east coast are facing charges following a confrontation with a coast guard vessel earlier this week, the federal government announced on Saturday.
The Farley Mowat is owned by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an anti-sealing group fronted by controversial environmentalist Paul Watson.
20. Citizen Zero (Opinion/Opinion)
Author : Charles Sullivan
Government and Citizenship
by Charles Sullivan I have been thinking a great deal of late about government and its relationship to the citizenry. It should be obvious that any government that claims to be of the people and for the people must also serve the people. Yet it is clear that the current government does not serve the people—it exploits them. When sixty-four percent of the citizenry demand an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq and the government responds not by withdrawing its troops, but by escalating the war, that government cannot be a government of the people, for the people, and by the people. What is it then?
It is a government of the wealthy; a corporate, fascist government of the highest order. It is a government that spurns ordinary people and uses its power against them. It is the opposite of the kind of representative government it purports to be. It extorts tax dollars from its citizens and sends them to do the bidding of the very wealthy under the pretense of patriotism and national defense. It is, in fact, using citizens against citizens and plundering the national treasure with the tools of empire, class warfare, and imperialism.
Sami al-Arian and the War of Terror
by Charlotte Kates
Dr. Sami Al-Arian, Palestinian political prisoner, is held in a prison hospital after a debilitating 60-day hunger strike seeking to draw the attention of the nation and the world to the injustice visited upon him, jailed for his commitment to justice and dignity for his homeland. This is not a scene from an Israeli jail, however, but from a U.S. prison in North Carolina. Al-Arian's hunger strike ended at the pleas of his family -- yet without justice for Al-Arian, whose imprisonment is part and parcel of a U.S. government policy of targeting Palestinian activists, as well as the broader Arab, Muslim and South Asian communities, in an internal "war of terror" whose policies run parallel to that being waged abroad.
The case of Sami al-Arian is a story of persecution, perseverance, and, ultimately, the determination of those in power to criminalize resistance and punish Palestinian activism, subverting not only the principles of justice but also their own criminal justice system in order to do so.
More than 5,000 Victorians attended American ex-president, Bill Clinton's book fair yesterday, if the Times-Colonist newspaper is to be believed. The gathered scions of the city heard the unindicted war criminal, and butt of countless lewd water-cooler comments praise Canada its rapine entanglement in Afghanistan, but urge we also further our [sic] efforts, and send more young men and women soldiers to that benighted nation to kill and die, and terrorize the too stupid to govern themselves in "our" interest locals.
"I know it is painful for you when you lose your soldiers there, but you are doing a good thing." - Praise for Canadian military involvement in Afghanistan from former Caesar, William Jefferson "Slick Willie" Clinton
Sadly, I couldn't afford to take the day off work, and fork out the
couple hundred bucks required to witness Bill delivering his pearls
before the rubes at the Save-On-Foods cultural mecca, but I was blessed
with the traffic snarl that followed; a mass exodus of Lexus' and
Benz's, and troops of Sunday best-dressed aspirants over-flowing
sidewalks and "don't walk" blinking intersections. So these, thought I,
are the 28% of the populace willing to send the children of anonymous
fellow citizens to their spiritual, and in at least 44 cases, physical
doom in foreign adventures. They too must be among the estimated 71,763
Victorians still subscribing to the city's only daily, CanWest organ
the Times-Colonist.
Canada Strikes Down "Security Certificates"
by C. L. Cook
Canada's Supreme Court released Friday its ruling in the appeal brought against the government in the detention of three men through so-called "Security Certificates." In an unamimous 9-0 decision, the court deemed the Security Certificates contradict the country's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Rather than order the immediate release of the three men held, the court suspended judgement for 12 months, time they say should be used by the government to draft new legislation that will conform to the law of the land.
The three prisoners have been held without charge, pending deportation. All three maintain they are innocent of connections to terrorist groups, as claimed by the government, and say they will face imprisonment and torture should they be returned home.
Canada's "Dunkirk" in Lebanon
by C. L. Cook
What is Canada's position on the "conflict" currently unfolding in Lebanon? It's a simple question, one posed repeatedly by the CBC's 'The National' host Peter Mansbridge of Canada's minister of Foreign Affairs, Peter MacKay tonight with little effect. Who speaks for Canada, according to the minister, is the G8.
That's just great!
A day following the immolation of a Canadian family visiting relatives in Beirut beneath an Israeli bomb, all the representatives of this country, those whose visage projects the nation's image across the world, can bring themselves to say of this war crime come home is:
"Go ask the G8 what we think about this."
The Canadian Broadcast Corporation is reporting today the death of
another Canadian soldier in Afghanistan, bringing the official body
count there to 74.
Jonathan Dion was a 27-year-old gunner from Val-d-Or, Que. (DND)
Jonathan Dion was killed early Sunday, when the Tracked Light Armour
Vehicle (T-LAV) he was in was hit by an Improvised Explosive Device
(IED). The blast wounded four other soldiers in the vehicle, all of
them listed with "non-life threatening" injuries.
Putting Canada’s Interest First: A Liberal Blueprint for the SPP
The Liberal Party of Canada (in opposition) Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion today released Strong and Free: The Liberal Blueprint for the North American Leaders Summit at Montebello, Quebec – August 2007, outlining a detailed proposal to ensure Canada’s interests are effectively promoted at the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) meetings in Montebello.
“The original spirit of the SPP was one all Canadians could embrace,” said Mr. Dion. “It existed to strengthen Canada’s national interest on security, trade, competitiveness, health, safety and the environment by working closely with our neighbours – to allow Canada and its friends to provide a better life for each nation’s people.
“But Mr. Harper is taking the SPP in a very different direction,” added Mr. Dion. “Under the veil of secrecy, he is blurring the line between partnership and imitation.”
The Council of
Canadians will be joining with other groups from across Ontario and
Quebec to protest at the summit site in Montebello. More details to
come.
The BCCLA has posted a request for legal observers and witnesses at the protests on August 20.
August 20: NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION to oppose the SPP - Please read on for how you can participate...
Judge rules Canada's pot possession laws unconstitutional CBC News
A Toronto judge has ruled that Canada's pot possession laws are unconstitutional after a man argued the country's medicinal marijuana regulations are flawed.
Lawyer Brian McAllister says the potential ramifications of a ruling that Canada's pot possession laws are unconstitutional are 'pretty big.'
by C. L. Cook
Now I understand those ancients who watched mutely the rise of German
fascism. I understand because I'm watching the flourishing of that same
evil weed again here in Canada.
And like those doomed Aryans of yore,
those Germans appalled by the coming of Herr Hitler and his brown and
black-shirted, skull and cross-bone adorned neo Visigoths, there seems
nowhere now to run, and no way to stay and stem the tide.
I'm also coming to understand the phenomena of hatred of ones origin.
Today, three generations after the fall of the Nazis, there is still
within Germany a deep shame, a disgrace that manifests, I'm told by a
German acquaintance, in a loathing of things German, a hatred of self
and the culture that gave rise to the horrific Third Reich.
Canadian Taliban: Harper's Department of Propaganda
by C. L. Cook For those believing Stephen Harper's emphasis on "family values" was just another of the many Republican inspired marching mantras adopted by his "Tory" party and not indicative of a slide down the extremist form of social control familiar to the unfortunates of pre-liberated Afghanistan, or current day China, some unsettling news regarding how the arts will, or will not be funded, with or without the New Government of Canada's help broke from Hollywood today.
Canadian media being what it is, The Hollywood Reporter reports; the Conservatives propose amending the Tax Act to make tax credits for film and television productions depend on whether a panel of government approved apparatchiks consider the project worthy, or "offensive."
Canadian Union Demands Inquiry into SPP Police Provocateurs
by C. L. Cook One of Canada's largest labour unions, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) yesterday demanded a public inquiry be launched into an incident recorded on video of what they claim to be evidence of an attempt by police to incite a riot at a peaceable protest of the Security and Prosperity Partnership meetings held in Canada last week.
Past the denial stage of Quebec's provincial Surete's
infiltration of protests during the SPP meetings in Montebello, Quebec,
Canada's federal Public Safety minister, Stockwell Day admitted the
three rock-toting "protesters" cornered by demonstrators Monday were
indeed policemen, as union officials and legitimate protesters
originally charged.
Canadians Too Thick to Support Afghanistan Mission
by C. L. Cook
By way of getting to know his new subjects, freshly minted Conservative Defence Minister, Gordon O'Connor summed up what he sees as his greatest challenge: How to get through to the sixty-two percent of Canadians who don't believe the country should be involved with the worsening occupation of Afghanistan.
"The population out there doesn't really understand right now why we're there and what we're doing. You have to say the thing five, six, seven, eight times before it really gets through to a large number of people." - Defence Minister O'Connor instructs the foreign press.
[This comes from 2006. The minister has since departed his post. - lex]
I heard the news bulletin over the loudspeakers in the government liquor store today:
"Three Canadians killed in an ambush. Eight in the armoured vehicle. Five injured: One critical."
The three Canadian soldiers, from left, Pte. Chad Horn,
Cpl. Andrew Grenon,
and Cpl. Mike Seggie, were killed in
southern Afghanistan on Wednesday
morning.(DND)
I wrote last week of three other Canadians cut down fighting the battle, waging this endless mission to defend Afghanistan against self-determination. Of one of the three killed today, the DND said he was a professional soldier, and at 21 possessed "unlimited potential."
The Vancouver Sun, an organ of the Canwest Global media conglomerate, announced Saturday its launch of a law suit against a local publishing firm and long-time Vancouver rights activist and radio host, Mordecai Briemberg.
an example of a "genuine" CanWest Global frontpage
The suit is related to the June 7, 2007 publication and distribution of a "fake" Vancouver Sun edition. According to CanWest Mediaworks Publications, the defendants hold a "desire to undermine, or hurt, the business of the plaintiff and its principal shareholders."
Jamaica is directly in the line of Hurricane Dean, now rated a Catagory 4 hurricane, as it heads for the Gulf of Mexico.
The catastrophic Katrina was smaller as it transited the Caribbean, and made first landfall on the Florida coast, before lumbering into the Gulf. Once there, Katrina's power was magnified by the warm waters, becoming the disastrous behemoth that devastated America's Gulf Coast states, most famously destroying much of New Orleans.
The so-called 'Bailout' is a controversial salve to the banking and investment sector, with no clear consensus on its effects on the economies of the United States, and beyond. Last week, Ohio congressman and former Democratic party presidential candidate, Dennis Kucinich spoke in the house against the deal. Meanwhile, in the shadow of the Bailout, congress is spending the weekend voting on a plethora of contentious bills.
Sunday, 28 September 2008 | 150 Hit(s)0 comment(s)
This 50-page issue of the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade's magazine, Press for Conversion!, exposes ten important ways in which Canada's Liberal government was deeply complicit in:
(1) aiding and abetting the 2004 coup d'etat in Haiti that ousted President Aristide's democratically - elected government and
(2) supporting the illegal, coup-installed regime that was responsible for the two-year, human-rights catastrophe that followed.
Crash Canada: Robert Dziekanski's Short Citizenship
by C. L. Cook
Nearly 6 O'clock on the west coast of Canada. In a few minutes time, the television news promises to carry video images released just today of the "tasering" death of a man at the hands of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Robert Dziekanski, a Polish emigre to Canada died last month before
seeing any more of his adopted country than a Vancouver International
Airport arrivals holding area.
Paul Pritchard, right, accompanied by his lawyer,
Paul Pearson, at a recent press conference, said
that he feels police are trying to manipulate the
truth. (CBC)
The RCMP had a story to explain what happened, but their story changed when the existence of a video of Dziekanski's death went public.
[UPDATE: Youtube, the video file-sharing giant, pulled the recording of Robert Dziekanski's final encounter with the RCMP, saying it was "not appropriate" for the site. Here's an article about that decision, and, as of writing, a link where it is still available. - lex]
Contact Us 
The American Civil Liberties Union today announced a landmark settlement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that greatly improves conditions for immigrant children and their families inside the T. Don Hutto detention center in Taylor, Texas. 
Meet Professor Nadia Abu El-Haj, a notorious Barnard College professor now up for tenure who: 
When people ask if the Olympics will change China, I say the
tense is misleading. The Games already have changed it. 
The fall of Citigroup is a resonant political event -- akin to the Republican Party's failure to win reform of Social Security -- only this time the bell tolls for the Democratic Party. 
The Republican National Committee (RNC) has for some time now made itself the mouthpiece for extreme pro-war rhetoric, despite the fact that substantial numbers of Republicans -- some of whom sit in Congress -- oppose the Bush-Cheney administration's misguided approach to the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Every day, new revelations emerge in the mounting scandal rocking the Bush Administration and the mercenary company Blackwater Worldwide. 
The media are hopelessly sexist and relentlessly trivial. So much we've learned from the mass hysteria over Hillary Clinton's "emotional moment" in New Hampshire. 
New York Times reporter, Chris Hedges, has written an extraordinary book, 
It was refreshing to read an article referring to threat of the North American Union, as you say, many politicians dismiss the term as some sort of conspiracy theory, even while they move on with the plan. You raise some important points about Paul Martin’s role in this betrayal of Canadians, however you mislead the public when you suggest that Mr.Harper would or could save us from the threat.
Federal Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn defended his decision to fire the head of Canada's nuclear safety watchdog Wednesday, arguing she lost the government's confidence over the way she handled the shutdown of a medical isotope-producing nuclear reactor late last year. 
I have been thinking a great deal of late about government and its relationship to the citizenry. It should be obvious that any government that claims to be of the people and for the people must also serve the people. Yet it is clear that the current government does not serve the people—it exploits them. When sixty-four percent of the citizenry demand an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq and the government responds not by withdrawing its troops, but by escalating the war, that government cannot be a government of the people, for the people, and by the people. What is it then? 
Dr. Sami Al-Arian, Palestinian political prisoner, is held in a prison hospital after a debilitating 60-day hunger strike seeking to draw the attention of the nation and the world to the injustice visited upon him, jailed for his commitment to justice and dignity for his homeland. This is not a scene from an Israeli jail, however, but from a U.S. prison in North Carolina. Al-Arian's hunger strike ended at the pleas of his family -- yet without justice for Al-Arian, whose imprisonment is part and parcel of a U.S. government policy of targeting Palestinian activists, as well as the broader Arab, Muslim and South Asian communities, in an internal "war of terror" whose policies run parallel to that being waged abroad. 
Canada's Supreme Court released Friday its ruling in the appeal brought against the government in the detention of three men through so-called "Security Certificates." In an unamimous 9-0 decision, the court deemed the Security Certificates contradict the country's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Rather than order the immediate release of the three men held, the court suspended judgement for 12 months, time they say should be used by the government to draft new legislation that will conform to the law of the land.
Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion today released Strong and Free: The Liberal Blueprint for the North American Leaders Summit at Montebello, Quebec – August 2007, outlining a detailed proposal to ensure Canada’s interests are effectively promoted at the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) meetings in Montebello. 
The Council of
Canadians will be joining with other groups from across Ontario and
Quebec to protest at the summit site in Montebello. More details to
come.
One of Canada's largest labour unions, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) yesterday demanded a public inquiry be launched into an incident recorded on video of what they claim to be evidence of an attempt by police to incite a riot at a peaceable protest of the Security and Prosperity Partnership meetings held in Canada last week. 
I heard the news bulletin over the loudspeakers in the government liquor store today: 
The Vancouver Sun, an organ of the Canwest Global media conglomerate, announced Saturday its launch of a law suit against a local publishing firm and long-time Vancouver rights activist and radio host, Mordecai Briemberg.
Jamaica is directly in the line of Hurricane Dean, now rated a Catagory 4 hurricane, as it heads for the Gulf of Mexico. 
This 50-page issue of the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade's magazine, Press for Conversion!, exposes ten important ways in which Canada's Liberal government was deeply complicit in:
Nearly 6 O'clock on the west coast of Canada. In a few minutes time, the television news promises to carry video images released just today of the "tasering" death of a man at the hands of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.